Home from Kona, catching up. 

A few minutes ago I start hearing loud buzzing whoppity-whoppity noises outside my window.  And then more, and  more, and then more on top.  A whole swarm of helicopters suddenly forming.  What the…?

So I look out, and there are no fewer than seven helicopters in view, all facing a construction crane about a half-mile from here, down in Century City.  OK, I think to myself, must be a car crash or a roof collapse or some other passing calamity that can make the hair and teeth all breathless between ads for investment firms.

Sure enough, some guy you don’t know is being rescued from a crane, an event which has no conceivable news value or impact on your life whatsoever.  And so of course it’s being covered by everyone with a camera and a helicopter.

These riveting, dramatic pictures, the anchortools say.  Of course, if the guy is being rescued six feet off the ground, there’s no news here.  These riveting pictures are only dramatic because somebody might fall or die on live TV.  It’s a hoped-for snuff film in progress.  Nothing else. 

Sadly for the "news" producers across America, the guy was rescued and whisked away directly, with a relative minimum of riveting, dramatic fuss.  Off went the rescue chopper.

And then the half-dozen bottle flies, attracted by the smell of potential shit, all flew away, too.

I’ve gotten a surprising amount of mail on this.  Neat.  Days later, I’m still thinking about these giant yet gentle and nearly-defenseless beasts.

I should say, rather, that they’re defenseless as far as I can tell.  No sign of fangs or claws or exoskeleton or stinging tail.  No spitting of poison, no toxic breath, no electic zappy ability.  In fact, merely touching them will cause injury.  (This is another way in which swimming with mantas resembles a lap dance: eyes good, hands bad.)  But then, mantas can weigh roughly a ton.  So maybe if you really tick them off they can gang-squish you or something.  But I doubt it.

One letter was from the director of the Manta Pacific Research Foundation, a research and conservation group working to study and protect the giant manta rays.  They’re also working to make it illegal to intentionally harm or kill manta rays in Hawaiian waters, and they’ve even got a petition you can sign if you want to help them show the government there’s real public support for getting mantas some protection.  I’d like to thank her and her group right here for her letter and their good work, which I encourage you to support.

Their site also has a little write-up of how mantas wound up hanging out in Kona, and even a set of thumbnails of the 100 or so male and female mantas who have so far been identified as enjoying the local chow.  There were two mantas in the water when I went; one of them spent most of its time near the surface and gave me the full-body loop easily more than a dozen times.  I’m pretty sure I recognize Weniki as the manta I spent large chunks of an hour with.

Meanwhile, these are the folks I went to sea with.  There are other companies which do similar stuff, but I can’t imagine it could be easier, friendlier, or more convenient.  The link also leads to a short Quicktime movie which gives you some sense of what being in the water with mantas is like.

Still in Kona.

If you ever have the chance to go night snorkeling with giant manta rays, trust me: you must go night snorkeling with giant manta rays.

If, like me, you are from a part of the world where people do not snorkel with giant manta rays as a part of everyday life, do not worry.  It is actually very easy.

In Ohio, when I was growing up, the closest thing to snorkeling we had was a bunch of guys who would wait for the middle of February, punch a hole in the ice, rip off their shirts, and dive into the freezing water.  There would be TV cameras around, and a lot of people going Woooo and Yaaaa.  And this would make the evening news for exactly the same reason that uncontrollable fires and 14-car pileups make the news.  It would also look about as appealing.

But in Kona, there are companies you can pay to transform your body into a rubber-clad piece of driftwood and hurl you off the side of a boat in the path of exceedingly bright lights.  The lights attract plankton, and the plankton attract 1500-pound giant manta rays, and the 1500-pound 12-foot giant manta rays attract me, so now you’re reading about it.

So, sploosh.  Blurble.  Blurble.  Blurble.  Wait.

Then, MANTA RAY!  GIANT MANTA RAY!  And it’s headed right for us!

The manta rays are harmless, although a few hundred thousand plankton would probably disagree tonight.  They feed.  You watch.  Sometimes the mantas decide to take a second to scope you out.  This involves you holding very still while they run the length of their body along yours, six inches away, in sort of a slow, undulating arc.

If you’ve ever had a lap dance from a 3/4-ton marine animal, you know exactly how this feels.

If you haven’t, then you must go night snorkeling with giant manta rays.

That is all.

In Hawaii at the moment, at Kona on the big island.

Flying here, I actually saw this, I swear to you:

A nice woman in her early 40s was asked to step out of the security line for what seemed to be a random pat-down.  The TSA employee patting her down went about her business, and then suddenly fixated on a small hard spot underneath the woman's shirt, maybe four inches below her left breast.

The TSA worker patted and poked this object several times, with an increasing look of concern.  

Finally, the screener asks: "Ma'am, what is this?"

"Oh, that?  It's nothing" the lady says.

The screener's radar goes up.  Time to call for backup.  "Ma'am, I need you to tell me what this is."

The lady pauses, looks the screener straight in the eye, and with a withering look I hope I never receive, delivered a full and complete explanation.

"That's my rib," she said.

Just learned that the kind folks at Wampum have included this here blog in the first round of voting for the 2005 Koufax awards for Best Writing and Most Humorous Blog.

The voting isn’t open yet.  But you might enjoy clicking over and checking out the other blogs listed.  (I’d say "competition," except I really don’t see it that way.)  If you appreciate Wampum’s work — and they have a terrific blog themselves, in addition to the Koufaxeseses — you might even throw a buck or two in their tip jar on the left.